The new boss is now starting to look extremely similar to the old boss. Today, February 2, Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor, rabid anti-Iran warmonger, Michael Flynn, delivered a stern and open warning to Iran, officially “putting Iran on notice.” Thus, it seems that the United States is setting its sights on the next piece of the geopolitical puzzle before the ultimate goal of Russia and world hegemony is to be recognized.

Flynn cited only two justifications for his threat, neither of which are logical or anything but unproven allegations. First, Flynn is attributing an alleged attempted missile attack on U.S. Naval ships parked off the coast of Yemen supposedly committed by Houthi Rebels. Second, Flynn argues that a recent ballistic missile test conducted by Iran violates the P5+1 and United Nations backed nuclear deal.

Flynn claimed that Iran has recently become “emboldened” because the Obama administration, the same administration which forced Iran to decimate their nuclear power program at the barrel of a gun, was “weak and ineffective.”

“In these and other similar activities, Iran continues to threaten US friends and allies in the region,” Flynn stated. Translation: Iran’s existence and refusal to knuckle under to foreign dictates represents a threat to the impunity of Saudi Arabia and Israel.

In regards to Flynn’s statements, it is important to note that the Iranophobic warmonger leaves out a number of points. First, Flynn lays the blame of Houthi missile attacks at the feet of Iran because, according to him, Iran somehow controls the Houthis or, at the very least, supports them. While it would be naïve to believe that the Houthis are receiving no support from outside forces, the fact is that there is absolutely no evidence that Iran is doing so. Indeed, the alleged missile attacks themselves are highly questionable, with some believing that they were actually a false flag on the part of the United States in order to justify a bombing campaign in Yemen on a flimsy basis of self-defense. This basis is flimsy because the United States does, after all, have its ships right off the coast of Yemen and it is supporting the Saudi war of aggression.

Second, if the Iranians are now guilty because of unproven claims of support for Houthi rebels who are themselves only acting in self-defense against a brutal and horrific Saudi campaign of terror, murder, and starvation against the people of Yemen, then the United States is officially complicit in the beheading of young children, rape, torture, starvation, and cannibalism as a result of their support for “moderate” terrorists in Syria. Of course, the latter statement is actually true since it is the United States who funds, trains, supplies, and directs the terrorist proxies in Syria to this day.

Not only that, even if the Houthis did fire on American boats, it must be remembered that the United States is aiding the country who is invading theirs and thus makes itself a reasonable military target when stationed so close to Yemeni shores.

Still, one must pay attention to the logic: “We supported a country in a war of aggression against a ragtag group of rebels and those rebels attempted (possibly) to fight back. Therefore, we must threaten a third party whom we cannot even prove supports the rebels.”

In regards to the ballistic missile test, the new aggression is being based upon tests conducted by Iran over the weekend on a medium-range ballistic missile.

Yet, for all the brow-beating of the United States since the Iranian nuclear deal was signed, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 does not prohibit Iran from testing a missile or a ballistic missile. There is a provision which “calls on” Iran not to undertake any activity that relates to ballistic missiles but “calling on” and “prohibiting” are two different things. As Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute writes, “There are no specific provisions in the nuclear deal that explicitly prevent Iran from testing a missile.”

Flynn has been so anti-Iran in the past that his subordinates were both confused and alarmed. In 2012, after the Benghazi attack, Flynn began demanding that those under his command at the Defense Intelligence Agency immediately produce evidence that Iran was behind the attack. If that kind of frantic framing of false intelligence sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered a similar intelligence agency initiative in the wake of 9/11 in order to blame Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

“Adding together President Trump’s call to the Saudi king, where they discussed Iran’s “destabilizing” actions, and a pre-emptive war authorization bill languishing in the US House, the current danger of a US strike on Iran is just an accident — or a false flag – away,” writes McAdams.

Flynn was head of the DIA at the time when the now famous memo was produced explaining the fact that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other Gulf States as well as the United States were supporting terrorism in Syria and Iraq and that Russia, Syria, and Iran were fighting it. The memo also described the plan and support for creating a “salafist principality” in the east of Syria and West of Iraq, the precise location where ISIS created its caliphate. For this reason, Flynn cannot claim ignorance as to whom is actually supporting terrorism and who is fighting it.

As Flynn furiously flipped through the pages of his statement, he was signifying the predictable betrayal of the so-called “Iran deal,” meant before it was even introduced the public – as early as 2009 – to serve as a pretext not for peace, but for war with Iran.

In it, Brookings explicitly revealed how a “superb offer” would be given to Iran, only to be intentionally revoked in a manner portraying Iran as ungrateful:

…any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.

The so-called “Iran deal,” introduced during the administration of US President Barack Obama, represents precisely this “superb offer,” with Flynn’s accusations serving as the “turn down” ahead of the “sorrowful” war and attempted regime change the US had always planned to target Tehran with.

In fact, Flynn would seemingly draw almost verbatim from the ploy described by Brookings in 2009, by stating:

Instead of being thankful to the United States for these agreements, Iran is now feeling emboldened … As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice.

Flynn’s statement is particularly surreal – considering Yemeni fighters are only targeting Saudi warships because Saudi Arabia is currently waging full-scale war on Yemen. Accused on all sides of war crimes, and with the US itself even restricting weapon sales to Riyadh – if only symbolically – in response to Saudi Arabia’s aggression – Flynn still claims that the attack on Saudi Arabia’s warship constitutes justification for putting Iran “on notice.”

Claiming that Iran is “sponsoring terrorism” throughout the region, when it is currently a major member of the coalition fighting the DIA’s “Salafist principality” in both Iraq and Syria is also surreal.

While the goal was originally to topple Syria as Libya was destroyed previously before moving on to Iran and then to Russia, it appears now that perhaps, with Syria so significantly weakened, the country no longer provides an immediate military resistance to the NATO war machine and Iran, having been weakened by its necessary involvement in the Syrian crisis, can be moved up on the chopping block. [1]

Cartalucci writes, “Meanwhile, the political climate in the West has been so expertly manipulated that the public is either so distracted with identity politics that they are unaware and unconcerned with the prospect of war with Iran, or so hysterical over ‘Islam’ that any nation perceived as being Muslim is seen as justifiably a target of US military aggression – regardless of how divergent any of these alternate realities are from actual reality.”

In the past, it was assumed that, with a Republican President, the American people get a new war and an anti-war movement but, with a Democrat, Americans just get a new war. While many in the real anti-war community have expected anti-war protesters to pop up out of the blue with the election of a Republican President, this time might be different. This time, American “leftist” protesters are so concerned with continuing abortions, sex changes, and racial identity that they are less likely to find the time to protest wars overseas, even if it is an attempt to be trendy as opposed to a real moral conviction. The right-wing, however, never seeing a war it didn’t like and already so radicalized against “Islam” and Iran, will be primed to support the war effort in full.

Flynn’s warning represents two possibilities. At best, Trump has no control over his own military. At worst, the Trump administration is nothing but a clear continuation of the Obama and Bush regime’s agenda of Anglo-American world hegemony. Judging by Trump’s appointments to cabinet positions, we are not hopeful. Unfortunately, judging by today’s threats, we are also not filled with hope in our desire for peace and reason to prevail.

I previously posted comments commending Flynn for speaking out against US Syria policy and identifying our support for “rebels” as being “willful” tacit support for ISIS. I didn’t realize he (and Trump) were so obsessed with Iran. Mea culpa.

Much of the rest of the world will see through this. European corporations want to trade with Iran, and there’s no way we can invade or defeat Iran without either allies or a draft, which will include young women.